[Barry the Sprout]

My point, and you're right that maybe its not expressed clearly, is that it could be offensive to claim that because it looks like an Islamic terrorist group it has to be Al Queda. It's like saying that there is only one representative of extreme Islamic politics, which then has a pretty dodgy conotation for the rest of Islamic politics as a whole.

Its actually quite good that you raise the issue of the IRA, as we all know that there are many different splinter organisations and extremist groups involved in the Irish Republican movement. When terrorist attacks occur because of this issue we don't immediately jump to assuming it was the IRA itself, as it could have been the Real IRA, the Unreal IRA, the I Can't Believe It's Not the IRA, etc... Yet when its an Islamic group we treat the issue very differently and just lump them all in together. Its about as close to simply calling them the International Towelhead Alliance as we can innocently get.

Please be aware I'm not trying to stick up for ther terrorists here, just trying to show how we treat the issue differently and what the consequences of that are.